Dragon Fighters (Father's Day)
by loboselina
Summary: Emma and David celebrate their first Father's Day together and engage in some bonding in the form of Dragon fighting. (Post Season 1 AU)


**Emma and David share their first Father's Day together. Post Season 1 (but the events of season 2 haven't happened) , a follow up to Breakfast in Bed (Mother's Day). Posted this a bit late as it's 3:30 in the UK but it's still father's day somewhere so it totally counts.**

* * *

After Emma's presents to her mother on Mother's Day, Emma knew she'd have to try and do something to match in with her dad on Father's Day, although as she had changed to last name to match her parents (though she was still known as Swan in public as it was easier at work) she wasn't sure how she could match it.

Two days before she was flicking through one of her mother's cookbooks in hopes of inspiration, one recipe suggested dumping what looked to be an entire can on two pancakes, she thought it would be a pretty good meal but her mom would probably give her a long lecture on healthy eating and even her dad would have probably stopped her from eating it. Plus, her dad tended to be the one in the loft to make the pancakes and they were really good, she wasn't quite sure how she could match it – she'd probably have to experiment in order to try and figure out his secret ingredient (which he made a big show of keeping from herself, Henry, and even Snow).

Snow spotted Emma looking at the cook books and she bit her lip, she walked over and sat beside her daughter, she carefully took the book away and set it down on the couch. "Emma, sweetie, why are you looking at that?" She tried to hide the nerves in her voice at Emma being anywhere near the kitchen.

Emma shrugged her shoulders and crossed her arms over her chest, not about to give it away as easily as that.

"Em," Snow said gently while giving her her 'mom' look. "you know that you're not allowed to cook, right?" She and David had never officially told her not to cook, but they even gave her wary looks when she was pouring cereal after the Mother's Day fiasco.

Emma raised her eyebrow with an amused look on her face. "Are you tryna tell me that I'm grounded from the kitchen?"

"I was trying to be slightly subtler than that." Snow matched her humour.

"You know I'm twenty-eight, right?" Emma rolled her eyes then rubbed the back of her neck self-consciously. "Sorry for, y'know, kinda setting the kitchen on fire..."

"I'm well aware you're twenty-eight, I remember that day very well, after all you came early and I had no form of painkillers _at all_." She refused to cry about it in front of Emma so she went for the jokey approach instead. "And you don't have to apologise, you were trying to do something nice, just no more going near my kitchen." She tucked a strand of Emma's hair behind her ear, developing their relationship since the curse was broken was a slow process, but they really had come a long way. "What's with the sudden interest in cooking, anyway?"

Emma sighed and started to twist her hands in her lap, she stared at them, until eventually Snow took gentle hold of them and squeezed to encourage her to speak. "It's Father's Day soon, and… I mean, like, you seemed to like your present," it was clear she was finding talking about her thoughts awkward but she continued, "…but I have no idea what to get do or do." She sighed heavily.

Snow smiled at her softly, she hated that Emma was clearly stressed and worried about what to do, but it was sweet that Emma wanted to do something which would be perfect for David's first Father's Day.  
"Well, let's put aside the idea of you cooking for a…. a few years…" She grinned when Emma playfully scowled at her, but she could still see the worry in her eyes. "Your father would love to just spend time with you." She assured her, though she could see that Emma didn't think that was enough, she sighed gently and wondered if Emma would ever believe that her simply being there with them would always be enough. "Why don't you spend the day out with him? Think about something he's always wanted to teach you, maybe you can do that." She hinted.

~OUAT~

Emma spent the next day out of the loft and around the town trying to set up ready for the next day, she only got back to the loft much later on and reheated some leftovers while trying to avoid David's question about where she had been, she didn't want to give it away and ruin the surprise. She had been exhausted from setting everything up so went to bed early, which only seemed to worry David more, who thought that she was avoiding him and Snow.

When Emma woke up the next morning it was much earlier than she usually did. After she dressed she grabbed the card and presents she had bought for her father, then headed down the stairs, she paused at the bottom of the stairs when she spotted David already up and drinking coffee while reading the newspaper.

David spotted Emma, and smiled over at her, he placed the newspaper to the side and looked at her with all the love he always did. He didn't even see the card and presents in her hand. "Hey Em, you're up early your mom's not even awake. I was thinking of making some pancakes, I can make yours now if you like?" he offered.

Emma hesitated but her dad's smile put her at ease. She walked over and sat beside him at the table, she placed the card and first present in front of him, the one she wanted him to open second she placed slightly behind the first box. She noticed him smiling at her and she sent one back to him which was only slightly sheepish. "Happy Father's Day."

David beamed back at her, he had only vaguely noted that it was father's day, and despite Snow being given mother's day gifts he hadn't really expected anything. He took and chance and leant forward and dropped a kiss to the drop of her head, he felt pride when she didn't move away as he did so, nor did she stop smiling at him (somewhat self consciously) when he started to open the envelope. "Thank you, sweetheart."  
His smile only widened when he saw the card, on the front was a picture of David and Emma, the picture had originally been taken by David, a selfie of the two of them he had taken when he had got his new phone. Inside it had a message saying "Happy Father's day, Dad, Love always Emma." It was a simple enough message but it meant the world to David. He carefully placed it onto the table so that it was stood up and pulled Emma into another hug. While the two hugged Snow walked in from the bedroom and sat opposite them, smiling at the pair.

"It's just a card." Emma smiled at him and shrugged her shoulders half heartedly. "You need to open your presents first." She nudged the first present closer to him.

Snow watched at David obliged, she knew from personal experience that a card from Emma would have been enough, more than enough. She watched him unwrap the present of his usual aftershave, he had been running out of it and happened to have mentioned in front of Emma to Snow that he was thinking of trying a new one. Snow and David both smiled when they realised, at the same time, that she must have bought him the same one as she didn't want him to change from the one she was used to him wear and she associated with her father.

"Thanks, kid, I had almost run out of mine." There was no chance that he'd be changing his aftershave anytime soon, now that he knew that his daughter clearly didn't want him to, he thought it was slightly funny that she let him know in such a way, not just outright telling him.  
He picked up the next present and opened it, inside the wrapping paper was a normal box, he opened that and pulled out a mug similar to the one which Emma had gifted her mom with on mother's day, well, the day after mother's day when she finally got around to getting it out of her car.

His mug was white, like Snow's, but had 'Dad' on it and three pictures: one was a picture of David, Snow, and Emma together in Granny's all smiling, Emma smiling at the camera while both her parents smiled at her. Another picture was another picture of Emma and David together, this one had clearly been taken by Snow, in the picture Emma was looking up at her father in adoration as he was telling her something. The last picture on the mug hadn't originally been a digital photograph but a drawing in Henry's storybook, when the curse had broke it had appeared, the drawings were now a lot more realistic so it was clearly David and Snow carefully holding the tiny new born baby, baby Emma.

David gasped and carefully examined all of the pictures. When he finally tore his eyes away from the mug his eyes flickered over Snow's teary eyes over to Emma who was looking hesitant, unsure, and hopeful. He placed the mug down beside the card as carefully as possible, as though it were a holy grail. He pulled his daughter into his arms and hugged her tightly. "Thank you baby." He whispered against her. He stayed with her in his arms for a while, he eventually pulled back, he did so before Emma but he didn't want to push her or make her feel uncomfortable. He subtly wiped the tears from his eyes and cleared his throat. "So, pancakes?" He offered.

Emma bit her lip.

Snow sent her an encouraging look.

Emma sighed. "I was, erm, I was thinking maybe we could go to Granny's for breakfast, just me and you." She quickly spoke, adding to her sentence, before he even had a chance to answer. "I mean we don't have to, or if you want mom to come, that's, that's cool, or if you want pancakes I can- I can try to…"

"Emma. Em." David placed his hand on her arm silencing her. "I would love to grab some breakfast at Granny's with you, just the two of us, that way we don't even have to pretend to get healthy food." He smirked as Snow rolled her eyes at the pair of them, no doubt she would try to make up with their junk food day with vegetables the next day. "Why don't you go grab your shoes and jacket then we can go."

Once Emma set off upstairs to grab the things she wanted to wear for the day, Snow leant over and kissed David, his hand found her cheek as he deepened the kiss. They pulled apart sooner than either would have preferred, but they decided against embarrassing Emma that early in the morning, no doubt they would resume it at some point. "Emma has a surprised for you planned," she held up her hand as he started to open his mouth, "don't ask me what it is, I'm not too sure myself, though I have a few guesses. But you might need to encourage her to actually go along with it."

David smiled understandingly, he knew how far they had come with Emma, but she still had a while to go before she would feel both comfortable and confident in being able to show her affection to people, especially her family.

~OUAT~

After they had eaten their breakfast at Granny's (which David insisted on paying for, saying it was a dad's job to do so, and that it was what he wanted to do on father's day), Emma had clearly been searching for a way to ask David to spend the day with her, so he had made it easier on her by asking her if she would spend the day with him – a small and hopeful question, but it had led to Emma agreeing, she bought some cold bottled drinks and snacks from Granny's telling him they would need them for something she had planned.  
Emma directed him to drive to a clearing in the woods, it was normally just a field but the day before Emma had been stood in it, in the heat, working her magic. Now there were boulders, logs to hide behind, and places to hide. In the centre was a huge egg, bigger than an ostriches', and as gold as the ones in the tale of Jack and the Beanstalk. Lying next to it were two swords, one was David's which Emma had had to sneak out, another was one she had bought from Gold's shop it was plain compared to David's but functional.

"Okay, kid, you got me stumped." David admitted with clueless excitement when he saw the swords. "What are we doing?"

"Well, I was thinking, that maybe we could fight a dragon." She held her hand up in the same way Snow had when he opened his mouth to protest that it was dangerous. "It's a magic one, it'll come out of that egg fully grown but not real, it has fire but if we get hit by it it'll be more like water." She beamed with pride at it all, she had worked very hard on it, and it had taken her all day and had exhausted her but it was so worth it.

David's eyebrows raised and he looked at her impressed. "Emma, that's genius." He was proud to see her beam in result. "This is seriously cool, when do we start?" He could tell that Emma was just excited, if not more, as he felt.

"Now." Emma grinned.

She put the drinks under the shade of a tree, along with her and David's jackets, as David went and grabbed the swords.

The two ducked behind one of the boulders, Emma sent a stream of magic at the egg, out burst a scarlet dragon with scales which sparkled with gold, it was exactly like the one Emma had fought under the library the only difference was the colour. It flew straight up into the air then stopped when it got to a certain height and soared down at David and Emma.

They fought the dragon for an hour, they fought together with David leading Emma, she pulled him away from being hit by the fire a few times, and he returned the favour several more times. Eventually David distracted the dragon as Emma sneaked up on it, and stabbed the dragon, it dissolved into smoke which all rushed back into the golden egg, ready to go again when Emma and David were.

"You're a natural, Emma!" David told her with great pride when the two of them caught their breath. "Seriously, you're really good, you must take after me." He added with a wink.

Emma laughed at his lack of modesty, though she knew that he was mostly joking, she took a swig of her cool drink from the bottle David passed to her. "I should hope so, I did have to beat that dragon that one time, after all."

"What?!" David exclaimed, his eyes were wide as they stared at Emma, demanding an answer from her.

Emma squeezed her eyes shut and tried not to swear. "I… uh… I never told that, huh?"

David felt as though he had aged about forty years, he had been up against a real dragon before and knew how scary they were, he had figured that Emma's accuracy to create a dragon had been because of Henry's story book – to think of her coming up against one of these beasts was downright terrifying. "No, you didn't" He sent her his best 'dad' look.

Emma bit her lip. "I figured mom might have told you." She admitted quietly.

"Snow knew?" His hands went to his hips as he exclaimed. "Did she _let_ you fight a _dragon_?"

Emma snorted at that. "Seriously? The woman who has tried to get me to use safety scissors and has grounded me from the kitchen, _let me fight a dragon_?" She laughed and saw David lose his stern composure and start to laugh too.

"Okay, fair point." He admitted when he stopped laughing, he sat down in the shade of the tree, and Emma sat beside him. He uncapped his own bottle and drank from it. "Hey, Em?" When she looked and him he continued. "Thank you for all of this, I love spending time with you, and even if you couldn't fight dragons or use magic or any of that, I'd be proud of you. You're my daughter and I love you. Thank you for making this an amazing Father's Day."

Emma looked down at the grass in front of her as she blinked away the tears. She didn't answer him or tell him anything in reply, she loved him as much as he did her, but she knew he wouldn't want her to say it until she was ready. Eventually she looked back up at him. "Can we go again?"

David chuckled, he had a slight feeling that they'd be fighting this 'dragon' for a lot longer than just Father's Day, and he'd be happy with that so long as he got to spend time with his daughter.  
"First you have to tell me just how you ended up fighting a dragon in a small town in Maine without me finding out about it." He told her. "Oh and Emma? You realise you're banned from fighting real dragons, right?"


End file.
